My immediate boss has a $35,000 annual salary. Thus, his average pay rate, 40 hours per week, 51 weeks a year will be just under $18 an hour.

My base pay rate is $4 per hour. Eight hours a day is $32 per day. Out of a month of 20 days, that's $640 per month on base pay rate.

My commission is 1.0% on any given product, 10% on service plans, and much higher with compounding vendor spiffs (a vendor spiff is a reward given to me for selling their products within a certain given period of time.) My commission increases 0.1% for each attachment added to the main product (which is a computer, CPU, TV, et cetera), up to 2.0%

There are a total of ten attachments, so my commission for each product is now at 2%. LaCie (for example) has told me that they will give me a $50 spiff for each terabyte hard drive that I sell with any system.

So, here's how I would get the commission. Though AppleCare counts as an attachment, I make 10% rather than 2%. Yes, service plans make us more money, but the value to the customer is of the greatest importance. This covers any significant non-accidental damage to the computer in a 3-year period of time.

Five customers per day with an average sale like this one will yield $542.25 of commission per day. After 20 days, I made $10,845, if I had sold like this consistently. But... this isn't a perfect world.

A day like that where five customers will buy as much as they did with service plans is extremely unlikely, but the possibility is there. I do about one-tenth of what is actually possible. Some are tight on their budget, some won't buy service plans, some want the machine and nothing else. Sometimes I'll have an entire week pass by with no sales at all.

My average commission per two-week period is between $700-$1000, not including base pay rate.

But if I made even $700 in commission in a two week period, with base pay rate is $12.75 an hour.

The real fun for us comes during Christmas and Black Friday, where we have actually sold that much.